WFA

💯 “#Marketers are optimists: we see opportunities where others see risks. The world would be a better place if there were to be more marketers.” WFA CEO Stephan Loerke closing the Global Marketer Conference 2024. 🙏 Thank you all for being with us today here in Toronto. DoubleVerify Adfidence Adform APS Group Circus Street Croud DoubleVerify Ebiquity plc Google Intuitive AI Kepler Local Planet Meta RTL AdAlliance STARS (Ltd.) TikTok XR Extreme Reach Zefr Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA) #GMW24 #GlobalMarketing #BetterMarketing

This week, I presided over the 2024 WFA Global Marketer Week conference in Toronto, where I connected with industry peers, global CMOs, and WFA members from around the world.   A highlight of the week was presenting this year’s President’s Awards to industry associations from France, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Sweden, the UK and the US for actions that help drive better marketing. Each winning initiative exemplified the power of collaboration to tackle big issues facing our industry and establish best practices for marketers everywhere. Wishing a sincere congratulations to this year’s winners on their outstanding work! Kudos to Stephan Loerke and team for an excellent event. And a big thank you for a very special, and fitting, jersey! MLSE (Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Partnership)     Coming together and sharing ideas is truly what propels the industry forward.

🔴 #Marketing is now in the cockpit, but you need to know how to pilot this kind of plane”, #AI is only as good as the data you put in” and “stop putting #people in small boxes”. Those are just a few of the important key messages shared yesterday at the #WFA Global Marketer Conference 2024. 🙏 Thank you once again to yesterday's stellar speaker line-up: Marcel Marcondes, Solitaire Townsend, Jonathan Adashek, Allyson Witherspoon, Dr. Marcus Collins, Asmita Dubey, Jane Wakely, Jenny Rooney, David Wheldon OBE, Raja Rajamannar and Stephan Pretorius. 🙏 And thank you to Scriberia for visually bringing these messages alive. Now let’s pay it forward. See you at the WFA Global Marketer Conference 2025. #GMW24 #GlobalMarketing #BetterMarketing Stephan Loerke Moya Brown 

It’s a wrap for Global Marketer Week in Toronto. Today at the National Associations Council meeting we saw highly elaborated presentations of accessibility of ads, frameworks and guidances on our path towards a net zero industry, the reality of cross-media measurement, the rapidly growing ecosystem of retail media and ended the session with sharing how we are looking at Gen AI on behalf of our members. My head feels pretty much similar as this photo from the live illustration from yesterday’s conference looks, bursting with ideas, details and chains of concurrent thoughts. Thank you once more WFA and all dear NAC colleagues for the delightful discussions during this week. I think I might need to add one more suitcase for my flight just to carry all these thoughts home with me 🤓💡🔮 #GMW24 #marketing #creativity #future

🏆 Congratulations to the national #advertiser’s associations of France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US for winning the #WFA President’s Awards. Yesterday, Raja Rajamannar, WFA President and Mastercard CMO, handed out awards to these associations for outstanding key industry initiatives. A special mention for the Nigerian national association for its brief writing programme and its important work in championing better marketing locally. Launched in 2010, the annual President’s Awards recognise initiatives run by national associations that help advance the #marketer’s agenda and contribute to positive change in the marketing industry and society. Submissions were judged on their ability to compellingly demonstrate that they had made a measurable impact and could be replicated in other markets. This year’s winners were selected from 27 initiatives submitted by 14 associations from WFA’s 60-strong membership of national associations.   👉 Find out more about the President’s Awards 2024: https://bit.ly/4dHR5gN. 👉 Find out more about national advertiser associations in WFA membership: https://bit.ly/3K4iThA. #GMW24 #GlobalMarketing #BetterMarketing Laura Baeyens Jon Baldwin Quintanilla Stephan Loerke bvA netwerk van merkleiders Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) Sveriges Annonsörer ISBA Association of National Advertisers

🚗 "Nissan Motor Corporation will roll out power trains, internal combustion engines & hybrid-like solutions at the speed at which consumers are ready to adopt them." 🙏 Interesting article on Allyson Witherspoon after an insipring speaking session by Nissan's #CMO yesterday at our Global Marketer Conference. #GMW24 Mikimasa(Miki) Hamamatsu #GlobalMarketing #BetterMarketing

Intentful created a #Ritbot, an AI Avatar of Mark Ritson. This AI avatar was A PANELIST at WFA’s Global Marketer Week #gmw24, along with Jane Wakely, PepsiCo, Asmita Dubey, L'Oréal, Jenny Rooney, ADWEEK, moderated by David Wheldon OBE, President Emeritus of WFA. Here is #longread how it all came together and how we built the AI model. A couple of months ago, we chatted with WFA, and Robert Dreblow and Will Gilroy came up with an absolutely brilliant idea of creating an AI avatar of Mark Ritson. Not just an avatar, but an AI that could join a panel during WFA’s Global Marketer Week in Toronto, along with the CMOs of the world’s largest companies, and with some 800 people attending. My immediate reaction was that creating an AI model (now known as Ritbot) is super easy, because that’s what our business is – we create AI models for our clients, and then once you have a model that knows whatever you want it to know, it can be shaped into any use case. But we don’t really do video yet, because it’s not commercially viable yet. So my second thought was “If it goes wrong in front of 800 global marketers, it’s the end of my career”. But if you know me, you know that I like a good challenge. 🙂 After all legal formalities were resolved, Intentful’s amazing production team created a text version of Ritbot in less than a day. Testing it was so so so much fun. I played with it, too, and learned so many beautiful variations of swearing that I am frequently tempted to use now. But more importantly, Ritbot's responses were so on point – and that’s because the AI model was built using Mark’s podcasts, blogs etc. (with his permission, of course). Audio was easy. The AI pitch was almost identical to Mark’s, but there were pauses in his speech, and that’s purposeful to be able to differentiate between AI and a human. Video was tricky. As our developers played with options, they created an AI version of me. It was so good that my initial reaction was that it can now join boring calls instead of me. But we are not there yet. For Ritbot, we did not want to create a video version that would be too realistic, because it can be creepy, so we tried different versions including animation and ended up with a good photorealistic AI avatar. Was I nervous ahead of the panel? In all honesty, my eye was twitching. But it all went well and everyone seemed to enjoy Ritbot's responses. To give you an idea, in response to “Hello” from David, Ritbot said, “What can I help you f*ck up less today?”. And all other comments and responses were “bloody brilliant”. Thanks again, Robert and Will, for your creativity, and of course, thank you, Mark, for allowing us to create your AI avatar. Thank you, amazing WFA, for driving the world forward. Stephan Loerke David Wheldon OBE ❤️ Laura Forcetti Alice Tomlinson ❤️ Intentful GMS Bruce Amick #gmw24 #wfa #ritbot #aiformarketers #futureofmarketing #isolovemyjob

Absolute buzzing after keynote at WFA summit! I revealed new research that two-thirds of green marketing have zero or minimal mentions of any BENEFITS from sustainability. Companies are nailing ‘ego-marketing’ boasting about their achievements- but consumers aren’t participants- just audience. #GreenLiving #SustainableLifestyles and more sustainable products must be functionally, emotionally and socially beneficial for people to adopt them. Thankfully they ARE. But brands crowing about their own purpose aren’t helping that story. Sell the benefits, folks!

In Toronto for a split second to speak at the WFA Global Marketer Conference about the influence of culture on consumption, organizations, and society writ large. There is no external force more influential to human behavior than culture, so cracking the culture code is critical for both marketers and managers alike. Man, did I have a blast. Brilliant talks were given. Awesome folks were met. Dear friends were hugged. And I just about shed a tear when I found out that these students from Humber College and Centennial College were looking for me sign their books 🥹🥹🥹 I guess I have to come back to Toronto—once this Drake and Kendrick beef is over-over, of course. 😂😂😂 Until then, thank you for having me. I’m forever grateful.

What a great WFA #GMW2024 conference in Toronto 🇨🇦 today!! Energy, passion, creativity - we, marketers, are optimists. We see opportunities where others see risks. The world needs more marketers! Thank you to our exceptional speakers Marcel Marcondes Solitaire Townsend Jonathan Adashek Allyson Witherspoon Dr. Marcus Collins David Jane Wakely Asmita Dubey Mark Ritson Stephan Pretorius Thank you to the fabulous #TeamWFA for pulling off such a fantastic event. Alice Tomlinson Camilla Hayes, Assoc. CIPD Bex Fisher Zoe Steele Camelia Cristache-Podgorean Laura Baeyens Stéphane Arnhem Rebecka Allén Hanne van de Ven Gabrielle Robitaille Esther Raado Fraser Bridges Jon Baldwin Quintanilla Andrew Mowbray Elien D. Justine David Amparo Gómez Castro Delaney Goodwin Robert Rakowitz Michelle McEvoy Robert Dreblow Will Gilroy Ioana Danila Julia Kraft Brenna Brandes Samantha Clayton Vinciane Patelou Tom Ashby Matt Green